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A Jilted City Finds Itself Enjoying the Heat

By Samantha Storey June 21, 2012 1:42 pmJune 21, 2012 1:42 pm

Samantha Storey/The New York TimesAnders Miller is rooting for Miami.

SEATTLE – It was Wednesday, the day after the Miami Heat went up, three games to one, against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the N.B.A. finals. And all around this city, there was a good deal of satisfaction that the Thunder, the team that used to be known as the Seattle SuperSonics, was probably going to come up short in their quest to win a championship.

Although it has been four years since the Sonics left for Oklahoma City, fans here still feel the sting of that desertion. Rooting for the Thunder seems unthinkable, even if many fans around the country resent the Heat because of the highly publicized, self-absorbed manner in which LeBron James deserted Cleveland to play in Miami.

Indeed, as the sun finally emerged here after several days of cold rain, and the city immersed itself in its weekday rhythms, fans didn’t hide their anger about being left in the lurch. At the Westlake Mall downtown, a group of women called the Seafair Princesses were gathered as part of the kickoff to the Seafair festival, an annual summer event. One princess, Shannon Malnes, when asked about the Thunder, did not hold back.

“I think it says a lot that the only two states rooting for the Heat are Florida and Washington,” she said, as her tiara sparkled in the sun.

Her fellow princess Jasmine Goodwin wholeheartedly agreed.

“The Sonics are like an ex-boyfriend,” Goodwin said. “We used to love them so much, but now they’re gone. It’s all so very awkward.”

Nearby, sitting on a bench, two businessmen were enjoying a cup of coffee. As it happens, one of them, Max Beeh, used to work for the Sonics in their sales department. “Being down, 3-1, I’m all right with it,” he said, as he took a sip of coffee from his cup emblazoned with a Starbucks logo. “I don’t want either team to win.”

He and his benchmate, Brian Twigg, an operations manager in digital media, raised their coffee cups in a mock toast, the fact that Howard Schultz is the owner of Starbucks and once owned the Sonics not at all lost on them. It was Schultz who decided to sell the team to a group of Oklahoma City businessmen after he was unable to reach agreement with the city of Seattle on a new arena. In effect, Schultz began the process that led to the Sonics’ departure.

Twigg admitted that he had been peeking in on the games. “I’ll watch portions,” he said, “though it infuriates me to watch too much. But I can’t watch a whole game.”

Over at Pike Market, Anders Miller, a fish thrower at a tourist hot spot, the Pike Place Fish Company, was also feeling sheepish about watching the finals. “I was friends with Nick Collison,” he said, referring to one of the Oklahoma City players who came up through the Sonics. “He used to buy fish from me. But I don’t want the Thunder to win. It seems stupid and childish, but I want the Heat to win even though they’re not likable.”

Across the street at Corner Produce, Ryan Parker was stocking golden raspberries and doing little to restrain his anger about the Thunder. “When people ask me where the first Starbucks is, I always say, ‘It’s in Oklahoma City with the basketball team,’ ” Parker said.

“I don’t want either of them to win,” he said of the Thunder and the Heat, although he added that he liked individual Thunder players.

“I like Durant,” he said. “I watched him come up here. But I don’t like the owners. They stole our team.”

There was one dissenter, a security officer named Vernell Cottrell, who said he was rooting for the Thunder – with an ulterior motive. “I want the Thunder to win to rub it in the face of Howard Schultz,” he said. “The Thunder are part of us. That could have been us.”

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